Since 1983, over 200 physical experiments have been carried out in the large-scale research facility of the Large Wave Flume (LWF) jointly run by the Leibniz University Hanover and the Technical University of Braunschweig.
In 1996, the establishment of the Coastal Research Center (CRC), a central institution of the two universities, marks the growing collaboration between the Universities of Lower Saxony.
In the following years, public interest in the research work in the LWF increased, which is reflected in numerous television reports.
Since July 2018, the CRC is a member of the German Marine Research Consortium (KDM), which structures and bundles the German competencies in marine research.
The CRC was admitted to the German Marine Research Alliance (Deutsche Allianz Meeresforschung, DAM) on February 12th, 2020. The aim of DAM is to promote the sustainable use of the coasts, seas and oceans through research, digitalization, infrastructures and knowledge transfer.
"For Lower Saxony as a coastal region, an in-depth scientific understanding of the role of the seas and oceans for climate change and biodiversity is more important than ever. Because concrete practical knowledge for politics, business and society can be derived from this. With the inclusion of the CRC, the German Marine Research Alliance, which bundles the expertise of universities and research institutions under one roof, has been expanded to include an important component. This will make the strength of marine research in Lower Saxony even more visible nationally and internationally."
Björn Thümler, Lower Saxony Minister for Science and Culture
The CRC's main research topics are coastal protection, sediment transport, maritime energy and eco-hydraulics.
The Large Wave Flume (LWF) enables experiments on a "natural scale" and thus solves the problems of scaling. This makes particular sense with regard to these areas:
· Breaking waves
· Wave pressure
· Sediment transport
· Morphodynamics
· Wave run-up and overtopping
· Wave transformation
In the following years, public interest in the research work of the Coastal Research Center in the LWF increased. The television reports from 2008 and 2009 illustrate this.
